Proposed 2009 MARRS

[kbailey]

James- thanks for the response. Your point is much more clear to me now. I think Jim has spoken well for the IT7 class so I won't go down that road. We certainly don't have to agree on everything for the groupings to work out.

Given the group sizes based on last year's numbers and the expected drop due to the economy I think we'll have plenty of room to manuever out there and have a good time (not like an 83 car start at VIR). Let's just make sure we talk and make the most of it!

Kevin

[dave parker]

Hi Group
I have been watching this thread for over a week now. I wanted to wait and see how things "played out" but, I will add my thoughts.

1. I think that the "qualifying race" format is a bad idea, brought to us by people who have been drinking the NASA kool aid (Saturday-practice, qualifying, race Sunday-practice, qualifying, race). But it is also fomented by the " I don't want to sit around all day Saturday waiting to qualify, I am a racer- I want to race" mindset.

2. I think that the annual "group shuffle" is inevitable. It usually occurs as soon as a race group of mixed classes has finally learned how to race together.

3. People will always be upset about change, regardless of how necessary or beneficial it may be. There will always be an element of fear about any sort of change.

I think that the only way to avoid any of the issues that have been raised in this thread is to either race a Miata (SM or SSM) or a formula car (in the wings 'n things or formula yawn (FV)) group as these seem to be "protected".

cheers
Dave Parker

[jjjanos]

Hi Group
2. I think that the annual "group shuffle" is inevitable. It usually occurs as soon as a race group of mixed classes has finally learned how to race together.

Dave,

IMO, the shuffle was caused by two things -
1. Low car counts in the SRF group. For 2 races last year, they were combined with other groups. The single class SRF group couldn't be justified. We could have put them with either of the OW groups or a sedan group. Neither SRF or OW wanted a shotgun wedding and, when the music stopped, Prod didn't have a chair. There were other places they could gone, but it would have meant even more shuffling then we have now.

2. ITS/ITA not working as a combo. ITS had to go somewhere and combining S with B a/o C had been tried before. It darn near killed ITC and many of the problems that were there for the A/S combo were there when S was with the slower IT classes.

IMO, consolidation was caused by the demand for "more" and a belief that, regardless of the groupings, car counts are going to be down. Whether that's track time or racing, I don't know. We spend a huge part of the weekend sitting on our butts waiting to go out and it didn't make sense to me (at least) to be sitting around for a bunch of 18 car groups. I'd rather be in my car then in the paddock. If it were up to me, we would have consolidated the OW groups too.

I'll say it again, if someone puts together a 9-group schedule that both works and is worth the pain of consolidation, then let's discuss it. I just don't see it working and at that point, we might as well go back to 10 groups and have a picnic in the paddock.